Your friends are wrong. This argument stems from a bad decision by SCOTUS called Employment Division v. Smith. It needs to be revisited. Even under Smith, a law must be of “neutral application” — but where religious institutions have a lesser status than alcohol/pot, not neutral.
And besides that many states have a religious freedom restoration act in response to SMITH, which restores the high hurdle the government must meet to burden religion. Kentucky has such a law. We used to have a federal law like this but SCOTUS struck it down.
SCOTUS imposes broad abortion availability on all states but not religious freedom. That doesn’t mean the CONSTITUTION places religion into a second class status — it means a group of justices did, and that can change. And it should. And meanwhile “neutral application” applies!
